1.13.05
Pond Scum: Are We There Yet?
By Steve Finbow
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In kindergarten, I used only red and black crayons, my full-faced balaclava had slots for my eyes and mouth, and I wore a Kevlar bib. I instigated direct action in the classroom and recited Proudhon not Pooh. That's right, dear reader, I was your worst nightmare – an anarcho-syndicalist rusk sucker. At the age of 11, I gave away my toys, shared out my chocolate bars, and threw in my lot with the neighbourhood libertarian socialists who congregated behind the bike sheds and swapped cards of bearded revolutionaries.
Art by Nicholas Allanach
At 13, becoming more idealistic and less interested in beating up rich kids, I moved rapidly through Trotskyism, Leninism, and Maoism. At 14, I could be seen sauntering around school with the slim but buttock-hugging Penguin edition of The Communist Manifesto tucked in my right back pocket, sometimes I would even it up by carrying in my left back pocket Che Guevara's equally slender Guerrilla Warfare.
On gaining suffrage, I voted for the Labour Party who, in those days, passed as a respectable socialist party. I still vote Labour, and I will probably do so in the next election. Maybe, in later years, I will vote Liberal Democrat. You never know, when I am drooling into my nightshirt in a bath chair, manhandled by warty nurses, I may sport a little shoe-polish-blackened toothbrush moustache and throw the odd Roman salute. What I'm trying to say is, do we become more conservative as we grow older? Do governments? Does culture?
It was during the late eighties – shoulder pads, big hair, stripy shirts with white collars – when I realised there was no longer such a word as ‘revolt’. It had been expunged, eructated, and emunctorated from our lives. Do you know what tipped me the wink? Do you know who blabbed? Who dished the dirt? It was a small yellow and black decal on a Tube train. The original sign read 'OBSTRUCTING THE DOORS CAN BE DANGEROUS.' During the seventies and early eighties, kids – their foreheads agleam with anarchy symbols, drawn on dot-to-dot from their acne, or as JM Coetzee writes, 'He may be the enfant terrible of anarchism, but really, he should do something about those pimples’ (Master of Petersburg) – used penknives, smelly copper coins, or begrimed fingernails to alter this legend to read 'OBSTRUCT THE DOORS BE DANGEROUS.'
This was post-punk anarchy – tongue-in-cheek, mischievous; up yours to government and public alike. But in the eighties – Gordon Gekko, yuppies, Sloane rangers – more pina colada than Molotov, more Hugo Boss than Bakunin. The sign morphed – it became a capitalist signifier. No longer was it a symbol of revolt, it had become a sign of impatience; time is money and money is mine. It now read 'OBSTRUCTING THE DOORS CAN ANGER US.' We were no longer supposed to argue, clash, conflict, debate, dispute, oppose, or protest.
It's 1968: January – the beginning of the Prague Spring; March – an anti-war demonstration in London leads to violence; April – Martin Luther King assassinated; May – riots and strikes bring a near revolution to the streets of Paris; June – Robert Kennedy is shot; August – the Democratic National Convention leads to rioting and violence; October – students are massacred in Mexico City. In 2004, we had Fahrenheit 9/11 and, er...
We watch TV pictures from Iraq and we cannot understand why the people are rebelling. The USA is there to impose freedom on the country. Impose freedom? It’s like voting for the anarchist party. Two pieces of news from the tsunami tragedy caught my attention in light of this essay. The Tamil Tigers are apparently ‘rebels’ rather than ‘terrorists’ because they are co-operating with the Sri Lankan government in aid relief. And an American pilot said something like this…
Pilot: Yeah, it’s kinda strange. Not long ago I was dropping bombs on Iraqis… Er, I mean, assisting in the liberation of that country’s citizens and now I’m dropping food and aid parcels in order to save people’s lives.
Yeah. We know what you mean.
We dare not rebel for fear of destabilising a false status quo. America prides itself on its democratic rights, yet the American public fail to question a government that is ultra-conservative and reactionary. Is this because America has slipped into the ease of empire as the UK did before the First World War? Here's a scary thought – to get to a stage comparable with the apogee of Britain's historical hegemony, it would, arguably, take America another 390 years. Ooh, momma! But since you had a proper revolution (unlike our quiet one) your history moves exponentially – JM Coetzee again, 'You will be surprised at how fast history can move once we get it moving. The cycles will grow shorter and shorter. If we act today, the future will be upon us before we know it.' Are we there yet?
I’m no anarchist. I’m no satyagrahi. I do advocate a healthy interest in revolt. We are shocked that suicide bombers blow up people in Iraq, yet we stand by and do nothing to protest at our continuing involvement in a botched and shoddy democratisation. Where is the voice of disaffected youth? You have Justin Timberlake, we have Jamie Cullum. More like disinfected youth. At least Eminem had a stab at protest with Mosh. Apart from George Saunders in the USA and Ian McEwan in the UK, there seems to be no concerted literary response to the continuing atrocity. Even our so-called anarchist writers – Stewart Home in the UK, Mark Amerika in the USA – seem to be more concerned with their narcissistic creations, cul-de-sacs and coprolites, than any literary protest. Where are the Thoreaus of 2005? Mailer, Genet, Lowell, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Southern and many other writers attended the 1969 Democratic Convention – where are the radical writers of today? Where is the voice of dissent?
I think America (and some of Western Europe) has forgotten how to rebel, how to question, how to say no. I can just see it. A remake of the The Wild One – let's call it The Mild One – starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Johnny, Robert Carradine as Sheriff Bleeker, and Amanda Bynes as Kathie.
Johnny and his gang are drinking mineral water and dancing alongside some of the women in the bar.
Woman: Hey, Johnny, What are you not rebelling against?
Bobbing his head to his pink iPod, Johnny raises his plucked eyebrow.
Johnny: What haven't we got?
Click here to read previous Pond Scum columns.
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Steve Finbow writes out of London, England. He has worked for the poet Allen Ginsberg, the writer Victor Bockris, and the artist Richard Long. His fiction, essays, and short plays appear, or will appear, in Eyeshot, 3am Magazine, Yankee Pot Roast, uber, Locus Novus, InkPot, Dicey Brown, The Guardian Online, and Pindeldyboz. He is currently working on a novel (Yeah, right). He can be contacted here.
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2004 Me Three